


Foster Child

by aphreal



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Child Loss, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphreal/pseuds/aphreal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn't the part of Maric's legacy that Teagan had hoped the boy would follow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foster Child

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the DA kinkmeme and the kidfic square on my trope bingo card. 
> 
> Thanks as always to signcherie for the amazing beta services.

Teagan sat at his brother’s desk, feeling like an imposter even after so many weeks of running the arling’s affairs during Eamon’s prolonged illness. He had fortunately not yet retired for the night when he heard a tentative knock on the chamber door. “Enter.” 

Using a finger to mark his place on the account ledger he had been reviewing, Teagan looked up to see one of his brother’s household servants, the man’s face fixed into an expression of polite apology. “Sorry to disturb you so late, milord.” 

“No need to apologize.” Teagan smiled wearily, gesturing at the piles of documents spread across the desktop. “As you can see, you’re not what’s keeping me from rest. Truthfully, I’m in a position to appreciate the distraction. What do you need?” 

“There’s a man at the door asking for you, milord. Only…” The man wrung his hands together. “He won’t show his face or give his name, and he says he won’t speak to anyone but your lordship. He’s standing at the servants’ entrance glaring at everyone and insisting he’ll wait all night. Truth be told, milord, he’s making the maids a bit nervous.” He frowned. “The porter would have had him run off, but there’s a woman with him, all bundled up against the cold. She says they’ve nowhere else to go, and we were hoping…” 

“That I would come sort things out?” 

At the servant’s grateful nod of assent, Teagan sighed and agreed. The finances would keep, and a delay of a few minutes would hardly matter given how deeply into disarray things had gotten during his brother’s illness. Teagan tucked a strip of leather into the ledger to mark his place and stood, stretching his back and neck after hours cramped over the desk. 

The past few months had given him new depths of appreciation for the scope of the responsibilities that came with being an arl, tasks he’d never relished on the scale of a bannorn magnified to a nearly unmanageable degree. Honestly he didn’t know how Eamon did it. Perhaps this mysterious visitor would be a welcome break. If nothing else, he’d have the chance to move around and restore circulation to legs that had started to go numb after hours seated behind a desk.

\----------------

Teagan hadn’t expected to recognize his unexpected guests. Normally, it might have been a pleasant surprise, but given the circumstances, he steeled himself to deal with whatever emergency had brought Grey Wardens anonymously to the door in the middle of the night. A faint hope that they had located the Urn evaporated quickly at the flat tone of Alistair’s greeting. Teagan let them in, dismissed the servant with a reassurance that the situation had been dealt with appropriately, and led his guests to a sitting room where their business, whatever it might be, could be handled privately. 

His sense of unease only grew when they reached the sitting room and he got a better look at the pair of them. Once the man’s hood was lowered, it revealed Alistair’s face set in grim, hard lines, and the woman with him – presumably Margaret Cousland – remained wrapped in a cloak, her head lowered inside its hood and her shoulders bent around something she carried close against her chest. Both of them moved with a deliberateness that suggested great weariness. 

Frowning, Teagan gestured towards a couch and waited until they were seated – Alistair’s arm a steadying presence against Margaret’s back as she remained hunched over her burden – before he spoke. “What do you need? I assume from the circumstances it’s urgent.” 

Alistair glanced at his companion, who didn’t even raise her head, before he responded. “We came to ask you for a favor.” He exhaled a sigh. “A rather large favor.” 

“Whatever you need, if it’s within our means. After what you’ve done for Connor and our town, Redcliffe would refuse the Grey Wardens nothing.” 

“Thank you. That means more than… Well, it means a lot. But…” Alistair looked away and took a deep breath before meeting Teagan’s gaze, his eyes serious and shadowed. “This isn’t the Grey Wardens asking Redcliffe. It’s me – us – asking you. It’s personal, and it’s not simple.” 

Margaret let out a strangled breath, almost a sob, and Alistair’s attention went to her immediately. He gathered her to him, letting her bury her face against his neck as he pushed back her hood, stroking soothingly at her dark hair as he murmured soft words Teagan couldn’t make out. 

After a few moments, she responded with a weak, choked laugh, raising her head and wiping at her eyes. Alistair cupped a hand gently against her cheek, brushing a tear away with his thumb. His next words, still low but no longer muffled against her hair, carried across the small room. “Redcliffe’s a good home. Look how I turned out.” When her lips quirked into a tiny hint of a smile, the tension in his face relaxed a tiny bit. “So maybe that’s not the best example…” 

A quiet whimpering noise drew her attention back to the bundle in her arms and confirmed Teagan’s growing suspicions. He shoved aside a sense of déjà vu and answered the question that hadn’t yet been asked. “I will do everything in my power to make sure the child is well cared for. And loved.” 

Alistair’s look of gratitude was almost painful in its intensity. “Thank you. I had hoped, but…” He swallowed hard. “Thank you.” 

Teagan nodded. “May I?” He held his arms out, and the infant was gently and reluctantly transferred from its mother’s hold to his. 

As the sleeping baby settled into his arms, Margaret gave another strangled sob, fresh tears leaking from her eyes as she squeezed them shut. Alistair held her again, more tightly, and there were no words this time, simply the gentle press of his cheek against her hair as she tried to muffle her crying against his chest. 

Giving them what privacy he could, Teagan turned his attention to the infant, pink-faced and sleeping, one delicate hand clutched at the edge of a blanket monogrammed with an M. He listened as Margaret’s breathing evened out, judging the right time to resume the conversation with a gentle, easy question a mother should welcome. “How old?” 

“Three months.” Margaret’s voice was thick with tears but surprisingly steady, her face tear-streaked and blotchy but set with determination. “You’ll need to find a wet nurse. She ate just before we got here, but she’ll be hungry when she wakes up.” A faint fond smile appeared for a second, gone almost as soon as he saw it. “She’s always hungry.” 

“That shouldn’t be a problem. The village Chantry keeps a list of volunteers to nurse orphans and foundlings. At the very least, that should provide until I can make more permanent arrangements.” He glanced back down at the sleeping child. “A girl. What’s she called?” 

It was Alistair who answered. “Moira. For my grandmother.” 

“She’s yours, then?” Teagan added the slightest inflection to make the observation into a question. 

“Of course she is.” The fierce, almost defiant gleam in Alistair’s eyes provided Teagan with a forceful reminder that, however well acquainted Teagan had been with him as a boy, he scarcely knew the man Alistair had grown into. 

Teagan nodded, acknowledgement and apology, and Alistair’s intent stare relaxed. His expression softened as he turned back to his lover, his voice gentler when speaking to her. “We should go. This won’t get any easier if we wait until she wakes up.” 

Pinching her lips together, Margaret nodded, dragging herself to her feet. She stood in front of Teagan, head held high despite the tears streaking her cheeks. “Thank you. For taking care of my baby.” Her voice broke at the end, and her face crumpled. She bent her head to kiss her sleeping daughter’s forehead, turning away with a hand pressed over her mouth to stifle fresh sobs. 

Teagan caught Alistair in a brief handclasp before letting him go after his fellow Grey Warden. “Be safe. Both of you.” 

With a grim nod that made no promises, Alistair cast one final look at his child before turning away. 

Teagan drew them up at the door with one final question, one he didn’t want to ask but could see no way around. “What should I tell her? Do you want her to know who you are?” 

When Alistair turned to answer, there was something almost like fury in his eyes, but his voice was cold and hard. “No.” 

Margaret looked at him in shock. “Of course she should know! If something happens to us, she needs to know… she was loved.” 

“That’s not what he means.” Alistair didn’t even glance at her, his angry gaze fixed on Teagan. “You don’t need to tell her who her parents are because we’ll do it ourselves. This is only until the Blight is over, until we can make a safe home for her.” His final words were clipped, holding years of concealed pain. “I’m not my father. We’ll be coming back for her.” 

Without waiting for a response, he wrapped an arm around his partner and drew her against him as they left, heads bowed together for mutual comfort. After watching them go, Teagan smiled sadly down at the sleeping child in his arms. “I think you’re going to be a very lucky girl, little Moira.” She shifted in her sleep, lips making tiny sucking motions, and he chuckled. “But first, let’s see what we can do about making sure you have someone to feed you when you wake up.”


End file.
